Author Social Links

Featured

Archive

Post Page Advertisement [Top]

The nightmares that Kashmiri roads are

If the state of our roads were an indication, we are soon to have one more summer of protest against the mis-governance

Saima Farhad

When the previous summer’s unrest broke out, many people tended to cite
unemployment and misgovernance as important issues and factors
responsible. Their argument was that a sort of anger and rage has
developed amongst the common people, because of their frustration with
the slow pace of development, which has made them to come out on the
streets to protest.

Lets for a minute believe them. If that would have been the case then
the government should have taken its cue, used the money flow from the
‘packages’ that came to prevent the unrest, and gone in for speedy
development on all fronts. But is that the case.
If the state of our roads, which all of us ply on everyday, were an
indication, then we are soon to have one more summer of protest against
‘the misgovernance’. And this time around no one would need to search
for stones. The streets have no dearth of them.
Every single day, due to the dismal state of our roads, every single
person here, loses time as well as money. Be it a student, employee, a
businessman, a hospital going patient, a doctor, a job seeker who has to
go to an interview, everyone is losing time. Those who travel by bus
get their journeys delayed because of the numerous potholes, and
unplanned excavations where-in every government department is in a race
to make a drain or lay a telephone cable or a water pipeline as soon as a
road is repaired or completed. The roller coaster ride through the
numerous bumps and the potholes sets the mood for the day for the
commuter in the bus. And if he is in the overload, as most of us are, it
sets a day for back ache too.
A car owner’s nightmare is more fuel consumption, more loss of money
and more damage to the car. The car mechanics in Srinagar are the
happiest lot, because thanks to the government, they are making a quick
buck.
The condition, our roads are in is worsened whenever there is even a
drizzle, forget about moderate or heavy rain, or snow. The absence of a
proper rain water drainage system, only adds to the situation, since the
water stagnates on the road, leading to more damage to the roads.
The potholes become cesspools and the roads rivulets during rains. The
potholes continue to store water long afterwards. Thus the government
ensures that those who have to walk the road face the utmost difficulty.
There is probably no one in Srinagar whose day has not been affected by
the splash of muddy water from the pothole or the road, when a vehicle
passed by.
The unrepaired roads are even unwalkable in the dry season because of
the dust. You have to keep a handkerchief to your nose to walk even a
small distance. But the handkerchief does not solve the problem
completely. The occasional spec of duct finds its way into the eye,
leading to a sordid time. It is not late for doctors to have a study on
the prevalence of lung diseases and eye infections in Kashmir, due to
the ever increasing dust on the roads.

At many places the roads have caved in. And this does not apply to
mountainous terrain where there are natural reasons at work. These
cave-ins instead of being repaired have been left as such, waiting for
unknowing victims.

It is no surprise that the condition of roads has greatly increased the
risk of accidents. The two wheelers face a particularly difficult
plight where they not only have to protect themselves from the dust and
mud, but also curve around potholes. Lives put intentionally at risk.

Whenever a road is repaired elsewhere out of the state it is expected
to have a particular time span. Let’s say, a year at minimum. But the
repaired rod here reverts back to the state from which it was repaired
in just two months at maximum. The contractors, fleeced by the
government officials, assure that the worst quality product is put into
road building and road repair. The money spent finds its way into the
coffers of engineers, politicians, and contractors, and the common man
suffers. Only if 40-50 percent of the approved money for each project
would have been spent on actual work, things would have been much
different. It is not as if people are demanding for American or European
standards. Even standards employed elsewhere in the country would do.
But in the face of an almost non-existent quality control mechanism,
this can never happen.
Even if luckily a road gets repaired, soon some government department
or agency finds it appropriate to start work on a new drainage project,
and the road digging starts again. This happens so often, that there can
be no co-incidence to it. There is no co-ordination among the various
govt departments is an accepted fact, but there seems a deliberate
attempt to start digging work as soon as a road is repaired. During the
digging process, no care is taken of traffic diversions. Even if there
is another road from inside the colony or the mohalla which commuters
put to use, as an automatic diversion, somehow at the same time out of
all the other places, digging starts there to undertake a long overdue
public works project. A comedy of errors, some would say. But it is too
planned to seem random.
And this digging and then reconstruction is a long long wait. The
biggest problem with road projects, be it repair or construction, here
is that they take ages and generations to complete. What should have
been completed in a week, takes months, what should have been completed
in a year takes decades. A mohalla road takes around the same time taken
to complete a new metro lane in New Delhi.
More so, even to the common eye the techniques put into use to
construct and repair roads, seem right out the stone ages. There has
lots of smoke, lots of dust, lots and lots of labour, and so on.
All this seems to be a deliberate and planned effort at failure. A
calculated effort to steal public money and let it flow into coffers of
those who know how to extravagantly overspend.
But since everything is supposed to be complicated in Kashmir, it may
not be so simple. Maybe this is even a form of long and protracted
community punishment being put into effect, to frustrate and slow
down-greats achievements for those who have these goals in sight.
So, if we go by the state of our roads, then we are on the road to
another summer of protest. Till then let the mechanics, the engineers,
the politicians, the ministers-the odd and the even make merry. As
someone pointed out, they make merry even then. It is always the
commoners who suffer.Author is Assistant professor, Department of Sociology and Social work University of Kashmir and can be mailed at saimafarhad@gmail.com